


Waiting

by tstansetis



Series: Aedan Trevelyan [3]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Drugged Character - non sexual, M/M, Other, Rite of Tranquility, Samson Negative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-05
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2020-04-08 08:28:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19103434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tstansetis/pseuds/tstansetis
Summary: The sickening taste of Magebane tickled the back of The Inquisitor's throat, his tongue thick and heavy, vision blurry. Where was he? How had he gotten here? And what was he waiting for?Inquisitor Aedan Trevelyan tries to make sense of his situation.





	Waiting

**Author's Note:**

> I know I've been updating this series very uh...sporadically. But I am actively still working on some of these! Eventually there will be more - and one of them is smutty, so...stay tuned? Really, they're more for me, at this point. 
> 
> Check out the rest of the series if you like my inquisitor! If you like Samson...this probably isn't the series for you, to be honest.

Aedan was almost entirely certain that he was alone. He heard no whispers, no hushed movements, no metal boots clanging against the rocky floor of the cave. The only sounds in the darkness were those of the storm - the rumble of thunder, echoing in the distance as the rain beat against rock and dirt from somewhere outside, the occasional crash of lightning raising the hairs on his arms, on the back of his neck. 

His shoulders had begun to ache from the awkward position they’d been forced into - bound behind his back at the wrists, with knots so tight that his hands tingled. Tugging experimentally to test their hold, he sucked in a sharp breath at the sharp burn of the rope against his tender skin, slowly relaxing until the pain there faded into nothing but an echo. He could feel the bruises that were beginning to bloom on his arms and his torso, and Maker, what he wouldn’t give to be able to heal some of the ache away. The bitter taste of magebane still lingered on the back of his tongue, and though he reached for his magic, it was barely out of his grasp, suppressed and hidden away just out of sight. His head felt heavy and clouded, and after a few moments of struggling to take in his surroundings, he sighed in defeat, letting his chin drop to his chest, his lips pursed together in a thin line, grim and uncertain.

He was in a cell, he knew that much - the metal bars gleamed in the corners of his eyes when lightning flashed, and he remembered the squeaking hinges, the click of the lock. He remembered struggling as the Red Templars dragged him through the mouth of a cave, trying to dig the heels of his boots into the unyielding ground. His palms still stung from trying to catch the cavern walls in his desperation, the uncalloused skin there scratched and opened from the sharp, jutting rock. He’d tried calling out - if he could just cry out  _ loud enough _ , surely  _ someone  _ would hear him - but as soon as he’d opened his mouth, a cloth that reeked of magebane and alcohol had been pulled roughly between his teeth, tightly knotted behind his head, and the world had become dizzy, disorienting...and then only sounds, only occasional flashes of light and color remained, hazy around the edges and disconnected from one another in a way that felt impossible to piece together.

Maker help him, he was in trouble.

The mage’s heart began to race in his chest, blood rushing in his ears as blind panic registered in his mind, and he sucked in a long, shuddering breath, shoulders trembling even as he tried to reassure himself. 

_ I’m the Inquisitor, _ he reasoned desperately,  _ they’re going to come looking for me - Cullen will come looking for me. He’ll find me. He will. _

The thought of Cullen’s warm, honey eyes and his gentle touch had Aedan breathing a little more easily. Of course Cullen would come for him - his lover would find him, and hold him tightly, and kiss the edges of the bruises lovingly as though he could heal them with his affection alone, and Aedan would ease his worry by running his fingers through the man’s loose, blonde curls, and they would return to Skyhold together. Everything would be  _ fine.  _ He’d gotten out of Haven - he wasn’t going to fall to a makeshift cell in some musty cave in Crestwood.

Aedan tensed, sitting rigidly still as scraping steps in the dirt echoed off the walls, his blood running cold at the clanking of plate armor that grew nearer and nearer with each heavy footfall. 

“Inquisitor.” 

Turning his head slowly, the Inquisitor looked up in the general direction of the raspy voice, his vision still swimming from the blighted magebane. The flashes of lightning outside bounced off the metal of the man’s chestplate, illuminating his face for the briefest of seconds - too quickly for the mage to focus. Pressing his lips together tightly, the healer furrowed his brow, fixing the blurry figure outside the bars with what he hoped was his most intimidating glare. From the sound of his captor’s scoff, though, he was doubtful.

“You’re probably still pretty dazed. Magebane’s awfully potent, isn’t it?” the man asked, tone blase and almost conversational as he leaned against the bars, “You got a heavy dose, but not enough that you can’t speak. What does the mighty Herald of Andraste have to say, hm? Does the bride of the Maker have any new Chantry “wisdom" for you to spew?”

The snide remark made Aedan grit his teeth, and he turned his head away from the man, remaining stubbornly silent as he grasped for some thin thread of his magic - anything, if only to rid himself of the terrible, suffocating feeling that he couldn’t reach it; as though it were a flame cut off from air, being slowly extinguished beneath foggy glass.

“I wouldn’t be so quick to turn my nose up, were I you,” the clanking of armor was loud in the large, empty cavern as the man crossed his arms, “I’m the only thing keeping you alive.”

Frowning, the mage reluctantly allowed his gaze to drift back in the general direction of the voice, some distant, focused part of his mind demanding details and explanations. He had been  _ expecting _ the threat of death, some demand that he grovel and plead for mercy, to exchange his pride for his life. Whoever this man was, he had clearly allied himself with the Red Templar order, who wished him dead and the Inquisition extinguished - so what was his goal, if he wasn’t planning to kill the Inquisitor?

“What do you want?” Aedan could hear the faint slur in his own words, even through the fog in his mind, but he pressed on, determined, “If it’s gold you’re after, the Inquisition has plenty of it, but I haven’t got any with me.”

“I don’t want your money, Inquisitor,” the title was mocking, Aedan could hear it now, “I haven’t got any use for it. One of the perks of serving the new god, he doesn’t charge a tithe.” There was a faint click, the squeal of rusted hinges as the door to the cell was pushed open, and before the mage could blink, the man’s face was mere inches from his own. The stale stench of sweat and the bitter chill of red lyrium permeated the air between them, and Aedan’s nose wrinkled in disgust as he leaned back, pressing his heels into the ground and trying to edge away, to put space between them again. A greasy hand snatched his jaw, pinching painfully and forcing Aedan to look his captor in the eyes. 

When he recognized the man before him, the Inquisitor’s stomach plummeted. 

This was no ordinary stranger, no faceless captor holding him for ransom. No, crouching before him was Samson, Corypheus’ general and commander of the Red Templar Order, a sneer on his unshaven face that made Aedan’s blood run cold with the realization that whatever the man had planned was likely much, much worse than anything he could come up with on his own.

“I can see from the look on your face that you know who I am,” the Templar studied the Inquisitor for a moment and shook his head, releasing his vice-like grip on the mage’s jaw, “and I know who you are, too,  _ inquisitor.  _ But...you knew  _ that,  _ as well, didn’t you.” He snorted to himself, shaking his head, “Some Inquisition. Not only a mage at it’s head- but a healer, to boot. You were always so  _ behaved.  _  never quite struck me as the type to rebel.”

Aedan gritted his teeth, “and /you/ never struck me as a traitor. So, I suppose that we’ve both changed, since Kirkwall.”

“Traitor?” the Templar chuckled darkly, sending a shudder up the Inquisitor’s spine. The way that the warrior shifted his shoulders left the mage wishing that he could pull the words from the air, return them to the back of his mind, where Samson could not use them against him, somehow. “Traitor against  _ whom,  _ exactly? The Chantry, who turned their backs on us when they lost control of the mages? Your Inquisition? The blighted Maker?” Samson reached down and grabbed Aedan’s chin in his hand again, his grip bruising as he forced the wide-eyed mage to look at him once more, his expression void of all cruel humor that had been present in the laugh mere seconds before. “ _ Bullshit _ ,” he hissed, violently, spittle flying through his teeth, and Aedan flinched, disgust twisting in his stomach as a thick glob splattered against the soft skin of his cheek, “You’re naive, Inquisitor. You’ve put your faith in fairytales. It should be  _ satisfying _ , watching you and your Inquisition, frantically clinging to a Maker that long ago abandoned his throne, who leaves even your most impoloring and desperate prayers unanswered, no matter how  _ faithful _ , how  _ righteous  _ you are, how many times a day you recite the Chant…” Samson stopped himself, closing his eyes and inhaling deeply through his nose, collecting himself for a long, silent moment before speaking again, “But, I am more than aware that you will not be swayed. You are the Herald of Andraste, after all. Someone that the “faithful” can look up to - a shining example for your followers.” 

Anxiety balled in Aedan’s stomach, heavy and tight, as the templar’s expression darkened further, the bags beneath his dark eyes seeming to deepen in the lightning that flashed from the mouth of the cave. A sudden and foreboding clap of thunder forced a startled hitch of breath from the mage as the warrior shifted in his crouched position, sighing, as though a great weight had suddenly pressed itself onto his shoulders.

“And an example is what you’ll remain, Inquisitor,” a thick lump formed in the mage’s throat at the words.

With his body not quite cooperating and his arms bound, he wasn’t fast enough to dodge the hand that snatched a fistfull of his auburn hair and yanked painfully, forcing him to sit rigidly upright and crane his neck. Loosened stray strands fell in front of his narrowed eyes as he made a valiant attempt to struggle against the hold, his glare sharp and angry even as a violent panic spread from his stomach to his chest, his heart pounding furiously against his ribcage as the flash of a blade caught his eye, much too sharp and much too close to his face. He thrashed and yelled, kicking out, but the way his head was spinning, it did him no good. As the blade drew closer, he winced, prepared to feel the sting of steel against his skin…

The tug on his scalp grew more painful as Samson began working the blade through the thick handful of hair in his grasp. When the templar stepped away, the front of the mage’s shoulder-length hair hung in choppy, uneven pieces near his cheekbones, and Aedan’s mismatched eyes were wide with incredulous disbelief.   
“Yes, an example.” the way that the templar kept murmuring to himself was almost more unnerving than the continuous motion of the knife that he still clutched in one hand, the blade catching in the flashes of lightning from the mouth of the cave.   


“...an...an example of  _ what _ ?” As soon as the question left his mouth, Aedan wished with his entire being that he could swallow the words down again, that he could leave them unspoken- because the bitterness and reluctant  _ determination _ in the templar’s expression spoke volumes about the unnamed horrors that awaited the healer. 

“An example,” Samson heaved a long-suffering sigh, and the Inquisitor’s eyes followed him uneasily as the templar stepped outside the cell once more, retrieving a roll of heavy leather, bound with a thick cord, “of what will become of those who defy The Elder One’s wishes. An example to demonstrate His power - and the weakness of the Maker, who will do nothing to intervene, or protect his bride’s Herald.” The Templar’s armor creaked as he crouched beside the healer once more, reaching out to tip his chin up again - though his touch was different, now. There was a tenderness there, one that had not existed before, and it made the Inquisitor’s stomach lurch uncomfortably, sent a wave of nausea through him that burned his throat and made his eyes water. He tried to jerk his head away, but Samson held firm, his gaze never once leaving the mage’s as he loosened the leather with his free hand and allowed it to roll open on the rocky ground beside him. The clattering of metal, the clinking of glass against rock, the sloshing of liquid and the brilliant, blue glow of lyrium all overwhelmed Aedan’s senses- and, after a moment, he felt the color drain from his face. Samson lifted the glowing blue bottle to his lips, uncorking it with his teeth and taking a deep swig.

And Aedan knew.

“No…”

“This isn’t my first choice, you know,” the templar shook his head, running his thumb over the mage’s lower lip in a way that made Aedan’s skin crawl, “I hate to do it, really. But, you’ve been a thorn in our side. Really, you’ve left me with no choice. If you’d just minded your own - if you’d only  _ listened,  _ like the good little mage you used to be…” The healer’s pulse thrummed loudly in his ears, muffling the rest of the Red Templar Commander’s words. 

_Can’t breathe._ The thought consumed him, overwhelmed him, and he desperately gasped for air through the tightness of his throat, tears welling in his eyes, stinging as they spilled down freckled, dirt-smudged cheeks. He moved to kick out, to throw himself back - anything, to put space between himself and the man in front of him. But he was trapped. Samson held him firm, and he had backed himself against the jagged rock wall of the cave, each jerk of his shoulders or twist of his waist sending searing pinpricks of pain across his skin.  
“ _No!”_

“Relax,” Samson’s voice was anything but soothing as the templar’s lyrium-coated blade descended toward the mage’s face again, “it’ll all be over soon. You’ve been waiting long enough.”


End file.
